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Some days I would agree. Others not so much. I've had some really great times with customers. I've had a fair amount of shit and an OVERWHELMING amount of stupidity... like every fourth order. But I think it's really about your mindset. You gotta learn to laugh at the crazies and remember the good ones.

Totally depends how busy your store is and how much bar time you get. It's exponential too. The busier your store, the less likely to get bar time you are, and the more skill and experience you need to run bar confidently and competently. On top of that, it depends how often you work and what shifts. I worked mornings for 16-20 hours a week for my first six months. So i got approximately zero bar time. Once I started doing closes, I had more bar time, but it still took me a long time to master bar routine because you're only really forced to master bar routine when it's busy.

Just hit my one year and I would say I'm average. I have a feeling I won't be better than that anytime soon. I'm bad at putting my head down and working when there are so many other things that need to be done. Which is why I love getting thrown on Drive Thru Master or CS. Your trajectory may be very different. The boyfriend of one of the partners in my store started at a different, much lower volume store back in August and he can solo through all their peak times and makes some pretty fab latte art as well.

I know the whole make the moment right thing is a big deal, and we're supposed to do our best to give people what they're looking for, not necessarily what they're asking for. But if a customer is being completely non descriptive then maybe in that moment, making the moment right is just letting them think they're right and they know what they're talking about and letting the, cram that diabeetus right down their gullet. I know my biggest struggle is how much we should let the customer be flat out wrong. I mean I know when someone asks for a Tazo chai that Tazo was our old tea provider and that the Classic Chai Tea Latte is what they're looking for. Is that necessary information for them, not really. But if they ever go to a store that is staffed by a bunch of newbies, it could potentially cause some confusion. It's been over two years since the switch over though. Eventually that's going to be an out of use term...

I don't know what it's like in the US, but Tim Hortons has ruined people here in Canada. If you as for a large double double in drive, you get a venti pike with approximately 3 ounces of cream and two packets of sugar. If you ask for a small double double, I'll go lighter on the cream, but I'm doing the same amount of sugar. People are so programmed to these highly calibrated sugar dosing machines that are designed to do different quantities for 1 sugar based on size. Since Starbucks (fortunately, imo) doesn't believe in that stuff, I always feel like it's a ton of guess work, and people have this really exact expectation of what they're going to get.

Companies like Tim Hortons are actually the ones making coffee complicated because they're programming people to turn their brains off and then become completely flummoxed when asked to make an actual decision about the shit they're putting in their bodies.

Also don't get me started on "regular" as a coffee descriptor. I have people use it to denote size, I've heard people say it for 2 milk/two sugar, one milk/one sugar, one cream/one sugar, just one milk, or even just black. One of the greatest weaknesses of handcrafting coffee for a drive thru.

My assumption is that we are to default to grande given that it is the (commonly known) middle size, it is the ideal structure for most lattes and ratios of espresso to milk and such, and also because the computer defaults to grande. i do think that it's misleading to make it sound like grande is the small size, but if people are being pushy and drive off from the speaker, I'm gonna assume grande. My technique is simply "is that a grande size today?" This forces an answer, and if they are still being non committed, at least they get the average size and ideal quantity.

Pretty much came to comment exactly this. Like if customers didn't need this kind of hand holding, I wouldn't have to remind every third customer on a 100 degree day that they probably want an iced caramel macchiatto and that the default is a hot drink.

Customization is Starbucks' whole thing. It's what they're good at, but it's also the bane of their business because there are a lot of communication breakdowns when you complicate things like that. That is why customers might seem like they're harassing you about something, it's likely because they've been screwed enough times before by miscommunication, either in the taking of the order, the writing on the cup, or the drink making of the barista.

99% of the time they're not trying to be assholes, they just don't want to leave to find out they got the wrong thing, or have to wait around another 2 minutes to get the right thing. People have shit to do, places to be. I might still argue that you shouldn't be at Starbucks if you lack that much spare time, but some people have their daily rituals and Starbucks is a necessary part of them.

A latte by definition contains steamed milk and espresso, it's perfectly rational for someone who doesn't understand the ins and outs of Starbucks to be befuddled by the idea of an iced latte. Go to 99% of non-Starbucks cafes outside of North America and ask for an iced latte, and you're likely to get a confused or disappointed look. If it's hot out and they're asking for a caramel machiatto, it's not a bad idea to ask, because often people want one iced and don't remember to ask for it that way, but if someone asks for a latte, make them a latte.

Seriously, do Starbucks employees think Starbucks is the norm for coffee? The idea of decaf espresso in itself to much of the rest of the world.

Well trained and experienced baristas at my store will run on autopilot and make a decaf drink full caf sometimes. It's a legitimate concern for a customer to have. It might not seem like a big deal to you, because you can drink a full caf drink at whatever time and be fine, but for some people, it's a fairly serious concern. Heart conditions, pregnancy, sleep disorders, could all be reasons for that paranoia, so please bear with them.

When someone who wants full caf has some sort of mental conspiracy that they're being served decaf, I'm always very confused by the whole matter because full caf is the default for espresso beverages, and decaf is the customization. When the question is inverted, them wanting to make sure they got the decaf they asked for, I tend to be more patient though. People have heart conditions, sleep disorders, could be carrying a child, or a number of other things where caffeine would not be safe for them.

As some folks have already sid, it's nearly impossible to know for sure. But, certainly it's not enough to run the whole channel because they do plenty of sponsored content. If you ballpark it with some of the lower estimates and take out all the cuts that people take, probably between 400 and 1,000 dollars a video. But it's all so abstract. They're all salaried workers, all contributing to the company in different ways that go far beyond just what Let's Play does. I would say the more reasonable question is really "How is Let's Play profitable?".

This is just it honestly. As much as corporate tries to make us a uniform system, store successea are 100% the product of the team. Corporate takes way too much credit. Managers and the supervisors they train make all the difference. And with how low the pay rate is, it's hard to find caring managers and supervisor. As a lowly barista, I should by no means have to pour as much of myself into my job as I do, because my pay grade honestly doesn't justify it. But it's kind of how I've always done things.

Setting a general tone and attitude for the store shouldn't really be on the backs of baristas, but sometimes a store ends up with a really crappy set of managers and supervisors and everything goes downhill in a hurry. I feel like me and a couple other partners kind of held the line while our store went through a lot of transition, but things are looking better than they ever have in my time here now. Any partner who has ever worked in a well functioning store and had a partner transfer in from an obviously poorly run store can recognize the difference a good example can make. Yes, some employees are just lazy, but a lot of under performing is due to crappy attitudes, low expectations and poor role modeling.

tl;dr - stores need people who set examples of good performance in order to perform well themselves.

Like a dual wielding platewearer probably. Maybe a good pvp tank. Not necessarily great at crowd control or being the main target, but can stand its ground against most combatants that take a swing at him.

Three fingers is definitely the wayto go. Billy Sheehan does a good job of explaining the math and texhnique behind it in that video. as other people have said, metronomes and practicing riffs and exercises at reduced speed and working your way up. Can't remember who it was, some Youtube bass instructor had a video about practicing at such reduced speed that it doesn't sound like the riff you're trying to play at all. This will make you very conscious of your accuracy, and timing and will get you much better at string skipping with the plucking hand.